Notes on the Epidemic of Privatization

Here are two snippets regarding the replacement of public provision of services with less desirable private sources.

“Kaplan University has an offer for California community college students who cannot get a seat in a class they need: under a memorandum of understanding with the chancellor of the community college system, they can take the online version at Kaplan, with a 42 percent tuition discount. The opportunity would not come cheap. Kaplan charges $216 a credit with the discount, compared with $26 a credit at California’s community colleges.”

“For better or worse, the tough times for public colleges nationwide have presented for-profit colleges with a promising marketing opportunity.”

“In California, the memorandum of understanding also requires each community college taking part to sign a credit-transfer agreement with Kaplan — and most of the state’s 112 community colleges are not eager to do so. Thus far, Kaplan has no takers for its courses. “Faculty from across the state were uniformly irate and disappointed about the memorandum of understanding,” said Jane Patton, president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, partly because faculty members were not consulted.”

“Mr. Azumah, the president, owner and sometimes-driver of TransportAzumah, thinks he can make money running buses along three routes that the MTA plans to shut down this weekend as part of deep service cuts to fill a yawning deficit. The MTA says it was losing almost $2 million a year on the X90, X25 and X29 express bus routes.”